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Police said around 6:45 a.m. Monday a caller reported an injured man inside a car in the 8300 block of Williamstowne Drive near Old Mill Road.

When police officers and EMS arrived on the scene, they found a man in the driver's seat with trauma to the upper body, police said. The man, later identified as Seydou Alassane Ba, 46, of Gaithersburg, was pronounced dead at the scene.

"We're trying to figure out exactly why he was in that particular area at this time of day, whether overnight or early in the morning," Lt. T.J. Smith said.

Police said they determined the case was a homicide because of injuries the victim suffered. An autopsy on Ba will be done Tuesday to figure out how he died.

The car Ba was sitting in was not involved in a crash, police said.

Detectives are still interviewing family members and witnesses in the case.

Ba's killing is the third in less than 10 days in Anne Arundel County. The others occurred in Laurel and Pasadena. Police said the activity is highly unusual for a county that usually sees about 10 slayings for the whole year.

"Unfortunately, we've had three murders in a week's time, which is completely unusual for us," Smith said.

On Nov. 8, 37-year-old Abelardo Aguilar was fatally shot in the 200 block of Red Clay Road in Laurel. There was a break in this case as the assailant's vehicle was recently located in Rhode Island.

"We had reason to believe that the suspect left the state, and that vehicle was recovered last night in Providence, Rhode Island," Smith said.

The rate of homicides in such a short time is a concern for police as the county has now tallied 13 for the year. The county does have a fairly solid case-resolution rate, as all but one of 21 homicides recorded since Jan. 1, 2013, have been solved, giving investigators confidence that the recent cases will be solved as well.

"These are individual scenarios that just happened in a cluster of about a week's time, so we're confident that the community is going to help us out in solving these two unsolved murders from this last week," Smith said.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Anne Arundel County Police Department Homicide Unit at 410-222-4731, the tip line at 410-222-4700 or Metro Crime Solvers.